


only in my darkest moments can I see the light

by knapp_shappeys



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, MJN Air, Sorry Not Sorry, Swearing, no happy ending, rating for graphic imagery and language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:53:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28782987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knapp_shappeys/pseuds/knapp_shappeys
Summary: Post-Zurich. An alternate ending toyou can hold my hand if no one's home(though this can stand alone).Airplanes were busy taking off and landing on Zurich’s three runways, or otherwise leisurely taxiing around the airport, a dance of tiller wheels and rudders choreographed by a control tower that saw everything as the group gathered out here on the apron, against the backdrop of a spectacularly clear, sunny, and cold winter midday.He would have liked that.
Relationships: Martin Crieff/Theresa of Liechtenstein
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Project Theresa (Theresa Takeover 2016)





	only in my darkest moments can I see the light

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by the song ["This December"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxk4KepBOc) by Ricky Montgomery, from which I borrowed the title and epigraph. There's also a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4T7VK2V65yj5yg4eYeaD71?si=-OjFEIe3SZ6h06bgat8Gfg) if that's of interest.
> 
> before anyone asks: yeah, there's probably something wrong with me, oof
> 
> **The "Graphic Depictions of Violence" warning refers more to the "graphic depictions" than it does to the "violence." Please make your own prudential judgments.**

_“Only in my darkest moments_  
_I want to see you with your head wide open_  
_Empty in the ground, gone without a sound_  
_Just another white elm growing at the end of town”_

\- Ricky Montgomery, “This December”

**an alternate ending.**

* * *

They were starched and stiff, the ceremonial uniforms Theresa had pulled out of the old armory the week prior.

Nevertheless, Maxi’s collar had somehow found a way to fall out of alignment, and Theresa reached out to twitch it back into place.

Maxi ducked out of the way, scowling.

“Watch your face,” Theresa pointed sternly at him, as inconspicuous as was possible without drawing attention away from Oskar Bider, who was speaking at the podium they’d placed out here. “Cameras.”

“They’re not even pointing at us.” 

“Watch your _tone._ Or would you like to sit with our sisters and Mami instead?”

Maxi fell into silence, still scowling, and looked across the runways. An Edelweiss jet—the 13:40 service to San Diego—was performing run-up checks near a designated wall. 

Airplanes were busy taking off and landing on Zurich’s three runways, or otherwise leisurely taxiing around the airport, a dance of tiller wheels and rudders choreographed by a control tower that saw everything. It looked almost like a castle built into a mountain, Zurich’s control tower, and Theresa could just make it out from their vantage point outside Swiss Air’s company hangars. They were situated far enough from the noise of the main terminals, but close enough to get clear camera shots of the Boeing 777 which served as their main backdrop, then a solemn pan to the planes in the distance. Their passengers were probably staring out of the windows, ignoring the all-important safety briefing videos, and wondering what the group was up to, gathering out here on an apron on a spectacularly clear, sunny, and cold winter midday.

He would have liked that. 

The view of the planes and the airport, that is—he wouldn’t have cared about the people watching. In fact, he probably would have hated that.

Initially, they had offered to halt operations at Zurich for the ceremony to take place, but the offer had been turned down. They’d been his whole life, his first love—aviation. And who the hell did they think they were, to deny that to him when he was no longer able to plead for it?

It was all so very unprecedented, but Theresa had insisted, and hadn’t she shown him the first time they’d met that she could do this, that she could _insist_ on something and it would be done for her? Hadn’t her mother, who was now sitting with the rest of Theresa’s family, the women all wearing the same black gauzy veil under their fascinators, taught her that all those years ago?

It was a good lesson.

It was the only lesson.

The representative armed service members had draped three flags over the plain maple box at the beginning of the ceremony to serve as a pall cover. The honor guard members had stood shoulder to shoulder on either side of the box, vastly different in uniform and bearing but united in their common show of solemn and ceremonial grief—one that came from measured, robotic movements and meaningful stares and ramrod-straight backs rather than from tears.

A flag from Britain, for the place he had been born and where he had learned to fly. 

A flag from Switzerland, for the people for whom he had given his life. 

A flag from Liechtenstein, for the place where at least part of his heart had been. 

The maple had also come from Liechtenstein, and a Liechtensteiner had hand-built the box in his shop two miles out of Triesen’s city center.

She had insisted.

The riflemen were standing in parade rest with Theresa and Maxi, at distance from the box’s side. As with the flags lying atop the box, one rifleman came from Britain in ceremonial attire, another from Switzerland in fatigues, and the last from Liechtensteiner police in another old ceremonial uniform they’d found in the armory.

Theresa’s left hand drifted to the throat of the scabbard hanging at her side, then the jeweled ornamentation around it. She ran her finger along the smooth, polished guard of her ceremonial sabre, the words of the Swiss Air CEO a meaningless blur in her ears. 

Her father had taught her how to hold one of these, how to raise one with a countenance of solemn dignity, how to sight along the curved blade to the sky, a steely look in her eye. But that had been a long time ago.

She’d never thought she would have to do it in real life.

And after this, she never wanted to do it again.

At long last, Bider finished his remarks. Polite, subdued applause greeted his conclusion, and the man made a respectful nod toward the draped box before resuming his place by the chairs they’d set up for those speaking in the ceremony, next to the British ambassador to Switzerland, the head of the Swiss Air pilots’ union, and three other Swiss Air pilots in uniform.

“Please rise for the conclusion of this ceremony and for the ceremonial salute, conducted by representatives from the United Kingdom, the Swiss Confederation, and the Kingdom of Liechtenstein. The salute will be commanded by the King and the Princess Regent of Liechtenstein,” an announcer intoned calmly, first in English, then in German, French, Italian, and Romansch for the benefit of those watching the ceremony on Swiss and Liechtensteiner television.

Maxi heaved a long-suffering sigh just before the cameras panned to them.

Refusing to look Theresa directly in the eye, he straightened up to attention and pivoted around 90 degrees to face her.

In unison, silently, they balled their left hands into fists and snapped their right arms into salutes—palms down, thumbs in, fingers unnaturally straight, fingertips barely brushing their brows—the Swiss way.

(Which is also the British navy’s way, but who’s keeping score at this point?)

They came out of their salutes, and Maxi stepped back once.

Again, in unison, they bowed to each other, Theresa making sure to dip lower than her brother. They’d agreed to make this modification to the old ceremony.

They turned away from each other, and Theresa began to march toward the opposite flank of the set of three riflemen. She knew that behind her, Maxi was marching toward the foot of the box. 

12 paces for her, 20 for Maxi.

She paused to time Maxi. Once she was certain she could no longer hear the click of her brother’s dress shoes against the tarmac, she gathered up her voice and commanded in English, “Right turn.”

In unison, she and Maxi turned to face their respective subjects: Maxi toward the box and she towards the riflemen, lined up and watching her.

“Salute!” she called, voice ringing across the silent apron as she snapped her right hand up and into position once more.

The riflemen snapped to attention, saluting Theresa. At the foot of the box, Maxi held his salute.

Theresa kept her eyes on the riflemen, still standing at attention and gazing expectantly at her. “With blank ammunition,” she commanded, “Load.”

The riflemen simultaneously turned to their right, pulled out the blank cartridges they’d been issued, and loaded their rifles. The airport had only allowed theatrical blanks—those without a projectile—for the safety of the public and the aircraft. Once finished, they turned back to Theresa. 

Reaching across her body, she grasped hold of the hilt of her sabre and took a deep breath. 

“Ready,” she commanded. 

The riflemen faced right again and put their weapons in position. 

She unsheathed her sabre and held it at her side, at an angle to her body. “Aim.”

The riflemen raised their weapons to their shoulders, pointing them 45 degrees above the ground, over the box and Maxi and the people. 

To the sky. 

In the crowd of people watching the ceremony, she thought she saw Wendy Crieff hunch and grip the top of the seat in front of her as Carolyn grimly put a hand on her shoulders. 

Theresa swung her sabre in a wide arc, following the riflemen’s angle and pointing her blade to the sky. 

“ _Fire!”_

* * *

Theresa wrapped her arms around Douglas as they watched the live reports come into the newsroom. 

“For those of you just joining us, Russian authorities have just reported that they have regained contact with Swiss Air flight 4176 at the airbase where they were forced to make an emergency landing, after four days of no communication due to a severe winter storm in the area,” the anchor, framed by Carolyn’s television, read from a sheet of paper. 

“It’s over,” Theresa laughed, turning to Douglas and leaning her head on his shoulder. “They’ve found them. It’s okay.”

“They were found by a recovery team, who, after consulting with the flight crew of the downed plane and with paramedics, have announced that all but one of the 287 passengers and 16 crew onboard the crashed liner have survived. Among the survivors, the statement reads that they have suffered ‘minor, non-life threatening injuries.’ The family of the one soul who was lost, the authorities add, are being notified.” 

“My goodness,” Carolyn said, slumping into an armchair and massaging her head. “One death? Out of...what, 300? It sounds almost…”

“I know, it seems a little weird,” Herc added, leaning over the back of her chair and squinting at the television. “Well, perhaps it was a non-related emergency or something. Otherwise...the crew must have done a marvelous job.”

“So when will Martin come home, do you think?” Arthur mused from his seat on the floor with Maxi.

“We’re receiving live images now from the airfield in Russia.” On the screen, the anchors were put in split-screen view with a bleak, wintry landscape and a broken plane. 

“Goodness,” Douglas murmured. “That airplane is not going to be flying anytime soon.”

Three pilots in Swiss Air uniforms were standing by an ambulance, consulting with each other and a soldier, reading off lists and papers while gesturing around the airfield.

Theresa frowned. Something was wrong. None of them were—

“They’re all quite tall,” Douglas observed quietly. “Where’s Martin?”

“You’re...you’re right,” Carolyn leaned forward, as if it would make the camera zoom in. 

“Could be doing something else…?” Arthur suggested. “Maybe he’s eating. Or having some coffee.”

“That’s not like him, to not join the other pilots,” Theresa murmured. She suddenly felt a strange paralysis overcome her—something that could only be described as _dread._

One death...Martin not standing with the other pilots. 

She hoped to God it was only a dreadful paranoia stirred up by her sleep-deprived mind, an intrusion into what should have been relief and joy over the fact that it had not been a total catastrophe, that this crash would not end up living forever in infamy because of a massive loss of life.

Then their phones had rung simultaneously from the same unknown caller, asking for Martin Crieff’s next of kin. 

And just like that, it was all over.

* * *

“Get me on the first helicopter to that town. Red Cross, Swiss, Russian...hell, even Soviet if any of them still exist. _Himmel, Arsch und Zwirn_ , I literally don’t give a...I don’t care. But get me there.”

“Theresa—”

“Franz. That’s an order.”

* * *

“It’s just down this way,” the orderly was saying in accented English. “It is fairly empty. This is not a large hospital by any means, we don’t normally get a lot of…”

Theresa looked aside and glared at the worker who was leading her to the hospital morgue.

“I am sorry. Forgive me, I don’t know what I was saying,” the orderly apologized, looking very contrite. 

“Quite right.” Theresa decided to assume an air of frigidity to match the corridor. 

The orderly continued in awkward silence until they approached a set of foreboding steel doors. “Here we are,” she said a little unnecessarily.

Theresa only gave the orderly a nod and followed her inside. 

“Your Highness.” The orderly passed her off to a morgue attendant before making her leave. “Irina will take you from here.”

“Good morning, madam,” the attendant inclined her head. “May I first extend my condolences.”

“Thank you.” Theresa gave the other woman a nod. “It is a difficult time.”

“Yes,” Irina agreed, and Theresa felt a surge of gratitude that at least this wasn’t happening in a place accustomed to stupidly persistent optimism in the face of grief, that this was happening somewhere where people weren’t trying to somehow cure her of her grief. “Do you need a moment to compose yourself before…?”

“No. I would much rather have it over with.” Theresa had steeled herself for this a long time ago.

Irina nodded and headed over to the line of wall freezers, pulling a ring of keys from her pockets. She counted along the freezer doors—one two three four—and unlocked the fifth. 

She beckoned Theresa over silently before opening the door. “Are you ready?” Irina asked once Theresa had joined her on the opposite side of the door, and Theresa nodded. 

Irina grasped hold of the metal tray and pulled. 

There was a little tag tied around one of his toes. Theresa looked away from it, over the length of the white sheet. What looked like a handkerchief was covering his face.

“What about…” Theresa gestured at the latter.

Irina looked at her. “It’s...it’s a terrible injury. We cleaned it up as best as we could, but it’s still…”

“I don’t care. I just want to see his face.”

Irina didn’t move. “Your Highness, I don’t think you understand.”

“I don’t care.” If there was one thing Theresa was good at, it was being obstinate.

“He is...he was very badly injured. His face is...extremely disfigured. It was fatal.” Irina’s fingers tightened around the edge of the tray.

“How am I going to identify him if you don’t show me his face? Or what’s left of it?”

“Dental records. You weren’t brought here to identify him. Do you _really_ want this?”

Theresa looked hawkishly at the mortician. “Then what on earth do I have left?”

Irina looked dubious, but unwilling to fight with the bereaved. “If you are sure this is what you want.” She reached down and gently lifted the smaller cloth away from Martin’s face.

Theresa gazed down for a second, then looked away and dry-heaved onto the floor. 

Irina made to lower the cloth, but Theresa waved at her to keep it held up and chanced a glance at what had once been Martin’s face.

When she was very sure she could look down without feeling like she was going to vomit, Theresa managed to speak. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”

Irina looked down with her and winced a little, but began, “Officially the cause of death was asphyxiation due to a severe tracheal rupture. What you are _seeing_ is evidence of fatal blunt force trauma caused by a non-invasive foreign object.”

“What was the object?”

“It was an iPad.”

“My God.” Theresa looked down again. “You’re telling me a _tablet_ caused...all of this?”

“A tablet rocketing through a closed space at more than 50 meters per second if his colleagues’ testimony is correct. Yes.”

“You were supposed to walk away from a plane crash,” Theresa muttered, momentarily forgetting Irina was standing there. “You were supposed to survive, and you had to die by being hit in the head by an iPad. What a way to go. Not even leaving a face for your mother to bury.”

Suddenly remembering herself, she glanced up at Irina, who was staring at her like she’d lost her mind. “Sorry. What else were you saying about his injuries?”

“Yes, well,” Irina shook her head, probably incredulous at the bizarre behavior of the foreign dignitary in front of her. “The impact of the tablet forced his left eye into his socket, fractured several facial bones, and fractured his jaw—that’s what caused the tracheal rupture. There was also evidence of skull fracture over the frontal lobe, causing bleeding and further trauma in his brain. Either way...it was fatal.”

“I see.” Theresa tried desperately to ignore what remained of Martin’s face and leaned closer, looking intently at his exposed collarbone, knowing he had a small spot on his skin there. 

And there it was. Finding that mole made everything so final. There was no more doubt that this body was his— _had_ been his. “Yes. That's him. Definitely him.”

“Again, I offer you my condolences,” Irina bowed her head a little and lowered the cloth back over Martin’s head. Theresa made no move to stop her from doing so. “I nearly forgot—I have some of his...personal effects in my office. I’ll just go quickly there to get them. Would you like a moment alone…?”

“I think I would. Thank you.”

Theresa didn’t turn to watch Irina go, only kept her eyes on the cloth. White. Neatly pressed.

The clack of shoes faded as Irina hurried away, a door shut, and only then did Theresa check over her shoulder before taking the edge of the cloth and running it between two fingers.

She didn’t know exactly what she was trying to do here. Maybe she’d been in denial this whole time, and coming here and asking questions was a way for her to accept that it had actually happened.

Martin was gone, and she hadn’t even been able to say goodbye.

Okay, that was a lie. A falsehood cooked up to erase herself of culpability in her own guilt.

She’d had plenty of chances to say goodbye. She knew the risks. He knew the risks. No matter how stringent the safety standards, no matter how choreographed the actions of those flying, safety in the air was never a guarantee. No aviation transport regulatory board or committee could ever erase the fact that humans had no place in the sky save those which they had built themselves, fashioned out of spruce and fabric and then of steel and aluminium and then carbon fiber skins.

Carbon fibers are stronger and stiffer than the matrices they are woven into, to an extent. Isn’t it counterintuitive that the part, in this case, is stronger than the whole?

If a carbon fiber breaks within a matrix, the load it had carried is transferred to another part of the composite.

This is why a carbon composite may harbor many failures within its structure, but still remain difficult to break overall. It is dependent on the failures occurring at different points along the fibers.

To fully break, the composite’s matrix itself must be compromised.

They had fought. One split, in one fiber that comprised the matrix of their relationship. It hadn’t been enough to break it completely, but still. A split.

She had brought him to the airport in her car, but had not even deigned to bid him farewell. Another failure in another fiber.

He had texted her, shortly before taking off, and she had pretended it had not flashed across the screen of her smartphone. Yet another split.

He had texted her again, upon arrival to Beijing, and then to their hotel, and then to bid her a good night. Then, before taking off from Beijing a day later—the last text.

She had ignored them all.

More fibers splitting, screaming as they were torn apart. But it had not meant the end of _them._ The matrix was still there.

But the crash, his death, had done something completely different to the delicate, carbon-fiber, burdened by the weight of expectations, _them._

It had destroyed the matrix entirely.

Theresa wasn’t sure if she had anything left.

Theresa wasn’t sure if she even _deserved_ anything after this, her most heinous of transgressions. All the chances she hadn’t taken to forgive, to communicate, to reconcile—all failures in the matrix of _them,_ failures she had not even lifted a finger to fix until the matrix itself had been torn completely asunder.

“Your Highness.” Irina returned, and Theresa let go of the edge of the sheet a little guiltily, stepping away from the tray as if it would convince the mortician that Theresa hadn’t been fingering the edge of the sheet covering Martin and staring blankly into space during the entire duration of her absence.

Irina held a plastic bag, a crisp new one, of the type typically used to carry sandwiches—not Martin’s father’s ring, a union ID card on a lanyard, flat keys, a billfold, a few loose franc coins, several jiao left over from Beijing, and three throat lozenges. “I brought these,” she said unnecessarily, as she was holding the plastic bag out to Theresa.

“Thank you.” Theresa accepted the bag, weighed it in her hand. “I think...I should go.”

“Okay.” Irina nodded. “Again, I offer you my condolences. I understand it’s a difficult time.” She came around the end of the tray and braced her palms at the head. “You’ll need to remove your hand.”

“Oh?” Theresa looked down. She was still holding the sheet. “Yes. That’s right. Thank you.”

She stepped away from the tray and watched Irina push the tray back inside.

Once she had thanked Irina once more, Theresa wandered outside and found a set of generic, puce-colored plastic chairs bolted into the floor. 

Sitting in one, she balanced the plastic bag in her hands. After staring blankly at the contents for a few seconds, she opened up the bag and fished inside for Martin’s ring.

She stuck her tongue out a little, turning it over and over and watching the fluorescent lights glint off the metal. Someone had probably cleaned it—it was a little shinier than usual. At least there had been a bit of dignity in that.

Theresa tugged her left glove off with her teeth and stretched out her fingers, looking at the shadow her hand cast on the hospital corridor’s floor.

For a reason unknown even to her, she furtively glanced left and right to make sure nobody was watching, then slipped the ring onto her fourth finger.

It was loose.

She dropped it back into the plastic bag with a humorless smile, picked herself up, and walked out of the hospital.

* * *

The shots echoed around the apron, and Theresa lowered her sabre, keeping it pointed at the ground.

Before her, the riflemen quickly put their weapons into position and waited for her to signal them to fire the next round.

“Ready.”

Far away, on Zurich’s north runway, a plane began takeoff roll. The roar of the engines, even from this distance, threatened to drown out Theresa’s commands, but she was determined to have the riflemen fire off this next round as the plane rotated.

“Aim,”she called out louder. She stiffened her sword arm, and the riflemen brought their weapons to their shoulders a second time.

He had taken her into a Class D simulator once, the ones with the best motion and visual technology, and let her take off in a 737.

One of the things that had shocked her the most about this experience was learning that he plane had a voice, too.

 _80 knots,_ the computerized voice had told her in an American accent. Then, a few seconds later, it had said _V1,_ and he had called out _Rotate,_ and Theresa had pulled back on the yoke just as he had taught her how to do.

_80 knots. V1. Rotate._

At the right velocity, the flaps suddenly forced the air flowing atop the wing downward, and the plane on the north runway tilted up, up, and climbed into the air.

Theresa wheeled around and pointed her sabre to the sky.

It tore from her throat as a roar.

_“Fire!”_

* * *

Franz knocked at the door of the hotel room, and Theresa took the opportunity to examine it. Well-worn, a shade of burgundy she hated, new keycard scanner. 

“Her Serene Highness, the Princess Theresa of Liechtenstein,” Franz intoned solemnly in English.

“Come in,” a voice sounded weakly from within. It was a formality more than anything, as the door had been left half open.

Franz nodded Theresa in, not meeting her eyes, and she entered the room.

A woman stood from an armchair repositioned near the window of the hotel room and awkwardly bowed, her face pale. She appeared to be significantly older than Martin and Theresa, yet she was restraining herself much like a small child would. Perhaps this was her first time meeting with a dignitary. “Your Highness,” she greeted in English. “I’m Leonie. Leonie Moreau. Training captain with Swiss Air.” There was a small butterfly bandage over a cut at her hairline.

Theresa motioned for her to sit down. “I’m not _that_ kind of princess. Call me Theresa.”

Leonie didn’t smile as she sat, and Theresa wasn’t expecting her to. “Liechtenstein...so you speak German. I’m very sorry, my German isn’t the best...”

 _“Je parle français,”_ Theresa offered, sitting in the additional armchair that had been placed across from Leonie’s.

Relief flashed across the other woman’s face. “Oh—then that’s fine,” Leonie managed a small smile and continued in French. “Captain Hans Vogel, the relief captain on this flight, is currently recovering from a concussion he sustained; First Officer Pierre Guerin, the other relief pilot, is attending to some business. I offer you condolence on their part as well as mine.” She was breathless, and inclined her head a little after saying it, perhaps having rehearsed it over and over under her breath before Theresa had entered the room.

“Thank you, Captain.”

Leonie looked back up at Theresa, something wild and dark and desperate stealing into her expression. “Your—Theresa, I’m so sorry. I don’t know if you could ever forgive—I failed Martin. I am—I _was_ a training captain.” She paused, struggling to formulate the sentence. “Do you have any idea…”

“I don’t.” Theresa shook her head. “Does that mean you’re training to be…”

“No,” Leonie interrupted, then looked like she regretted it. “My apologies for interrupting. But as a training captain, I...I was supposed to teach junior first officers the ropes. Take them on, see them through, see them up in the rankings—Martin…” One of her hands came up, and she fidgeted a little with the bandage on her head. “I failed him. I failed him, and I failed you. I don’t know...I honestly don’t know how you have the grace to even _talk_ to me.”

Theresa sat frozen, back ramrod straight and not touching the back of her chair, just as she’d been taught. “I mean, it is my job to do so.”

She hadn’t meant for it to sound rude, but the chilly silence between them after she’d said it was palpable.

She’d dealt with all sorts of condolence calls in her lifetime. Former household staffers, retired ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting, illustrious diplomats.

Nobody had ever really taught her how to take one herself.

Leonie leaned back, expression turning a little stung. “I’m sorry.”

Theresa sighed. “I didn’t mean for that to come off as rude,” she explained gently. “I think it’s better for both of us if we try to keep this as short as possible. I…” Theresa knitted her hands together on her lap, then looked back at Leonie. “All I want is for you to answer a few questions. That’s all I want, and then I’m going to take Martin home.” There it was. The fact, calm and nonchalant, as if she were just picking up Martin from the airport and bringing him back to his flat.

Home...his final home. Had they sorted out where he would be buried? If she’d had her way, he would have been buried in the old cemetery of St. Florin’s—if she could wrangle it right, he could have had a place of honor in the royal crypt. But that would have required unanimous approval from the rest of the family, and she wasn’t sure if she could get it. She _could_ frame his death as some sort of heroic martyrdom for the sake of common good, and maybe _that_ could sway them, but she had to admit—being hit in the head by an iPad flying through the air at upward of 50 meters per second was not the most heroic of deaths.

And of course there was Martin’s family to ask—they hadn’t decided either. They had loved him for far longer than she had. Maybe even _more_ than she had. Obviously they would have the final say.

But she felt an almost morbid compulsion to _know._ What had it been like in that flightdeck? His last moments, the ones he had probably spent thinking she didn’t care for him any longer…

It was the least she could do to burden herself with that knowledge, though he was no longer around to know that she was doing so.

The way she saw it, this was atonement.

She knew that she would atone for this for the rest of her life.

“Of course I will answer your questions,” Leonie nodded, contrite. “It is the very least I can do.”

“Thank you.” Theresa composed herself, then tipped her head to one side and asked, “Can you tell me your impressions of...well, how he flew...on the way to Beijing?”

Leonie nodded again, looking a little less uncomfortable. Evidently this was somewhere she was eager to speak of, rather than the crash itself. “He flew pretty well, for someone transitioning from short-haul. Handled the longer hours well. It seemed like he’d done something like it before, which was refreshing. I normally have to support the new first officers with radio communications—they’re not always very used to talking to ATC outside of the Schengen area. Language barriers, infrastructure...for whatever reason. But he was able to communicate well with them, which was...promising. Otherwise, nothing particularly of note. Positive or negative. He did...well.” Leonie eyed Theresa. “And he didn’t talk about you, if you’re wondering.”

“I don’t care about that.” Again, it came out more clipped than she’d wanted, and Theresa winced. “My apologies again. It wasn’t my intention to be rude.”

Leonie nodded, but it was not as accommodating of an action as it had been the first time. Theresa sensed her welcome was growing very thin. “Captain Moreau...if it is hard for you to speak about, I understand, but I want to know. How did Martin come to be in the First Officer’s seat when the...I understand an engine failure occurred?”

“It is difficult to speak about it. You’re right. But...I will do my best.” Leonie steeled herself, kneaded her hands in her lap, not even bothering to hide the fact that she was fidgeting. “Flights covering long distances—flights with long hours—they always require us to carry relief pilots on board. We switch at predetermined times. Martin and I had taken the plane out of Zurich, then halfway across Russia we rested and let Hans and Pierre take the controls. Then, Martin and I took the plane out of Beijing, and Hans and Pierre were supposed to take over halfway and bring it back to Zurich. 

“When...the engine failure occurred...it was just before the switch was supposed to happen. We had no time to change out the pilots. It was an emergency situation. That is why Martin was still at the controls. Does that...does that answer your question?”

“Partially.” Theresa inclined her head. “Thank you. And...if you can do your best…”

“Okay, let’s get over it. Do you want me to talk about how he...was...during the crash?” Leonie interrupted again, this time unrepentant that she’d done so. “Because I can do that. I can do that easily, now that I’ve got the courage to do it, but I’m not sure if I can do it again…”

“That’s fine. I just want to know.” Theresa leaned back, crossed her legs at the ankles, folded her hands over her knee to keep them from shaking. Here was the person who knew the most about Martin’s final moments. Here was Theresa’s chance to find out.

“As the time for crew change was nearing, I was starting to notice a malfunction in the engine bleed air systems—that’s the thing that—”

“Helps with cabin pressurization. I’m aware.”

“You are? Okay. Anyway—” Leonie gulped, then continued. “It was causing some...strange behavior, and I was concerned. So I preemptively sent a wakeup call to Hans and Pierre and sent Martin out of the flightdeck to fetch them. I needed Hans to help determine a course of action. But by the time the relief crew came in, and Hans had seen the problem with me, the engine spontaneously failed. 

“When a plane engine fails, the tendency of the aircraft is to roll in the direction of the dead engine. In a split second, it’s hard to instantly correct the orientation of the plane. So Hans sustained a concussion during the sudden movement, and Martin started squawking 7700—he started sending out emergency transmissions and taking out checklists without me asking him to.” Leonie shook her head. “He did everything right.”

“And? What else?”

“We communicated with ATC, I flew the plane manually, and they directed us to land at the...the airbase. We were still running through checklists, trying to restart the failed engine...we tried everything in the handbook, but it...it just wouldn’t budge. So I knew we were going to take a landing with one engine.

“I gave Martin the controls for a bit, briefed the other pilots, and told the cabin crew what was going on. These modern planes—they’re designed to fly without either engine, but to an extent. We had to put it down _somewhere,_ and none of us liked the place ATC had given...but it wasn’t like we could do anything about it.”

“And how long, from the moment of the engine failure…”

“Twenty-four minutes. Approximately.”

 _Twenty-four minutes._ Theresa bit her lip and stared out of the window at the winter landscape. Twenty-four minutes was all it had taken.

“Can you tell me how he died, from your point of view?” she asked Leonie bluntly, not looking at the captain.

Leonie’s hands froze for a second. “You really want to know _that?”_

“Captain Moreau.” Theresa looked back at the other woman. “I’ve just been to the hospital to ID his body. I’ve seen what happened to him. The mortician told me, in lurid detail, why my partner no longer has a face. Yes, I want to know what happened, from someone who was there when it did.”

Leonie’s mouth was half-open, for a fraction of a second, before she nodded. “I’ll try my best, but—keep in mind, I was flying the plane. My attention was on the controls, on the view outside, on getting the plane down—for all I knew, Martin was in brace position, like the other pilots were.”

“If the best is all you have, I will take it.”

“Okay. Well.” Leonie took another deep breath. “We were coming in, on final approach. No controllers, no vectors, not even signaling systems to inform us of our angle. We were visual, but we may as well have been blind for the lack of information we had in landing the plane. I...I had Martin read callouts for me, and he was reading from his map of the airfield, calling the altitudes out—it turned out we were coming in at a higher angle than we had anticipated, and it was a hard landing. A _hard_ landing.” Leonie shuddered. “I remember deploying every single flap I could reach, shouting for Martin to do the same, but the plane wasn’t slowing down right, and when I dared to look over to my right…”

Leonie abruptly turned aside and ground the heels of her palms into her eyes. “ _Merde._ This part’s hard. I don’t know if you want to hear...”

“Please, Captain Moreau. I can take it.”

“He was leaning over to one side,” Leonie gasped, keeping her hands over her eyes. “Unrecognizable. His face was completely destroyed. One of his eyes...his left eye was being forced inward...there was blood everywhere. I reached over and deployed all the flaps, but there was already a snowdrift slowing us down, and when I looked down at my arm—” She ran a hand over her mouth. “His blood, splattered over me. All over my shirt. All over the central console. It was horrific. I looked backward as the plane slowed to a stop, and Hans and Pierre were shouting something but I couldn’t hear...it was the worst moment of my life...and then I saw the tablet Martin had been using. It was lying between Hans and Pierre on the floor. I put it together...it must not have been secured down correctly. It must have come loose and flown off and hit Martin…and at such a high velocity…”

“What else?”

“I won’t forget this for the rest of my life—the bits of...but mostly blood. His blood.” Leonie let out a ragged breath. “Your Highness, I really can’t talk about it anymore. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Theresa inclined her head, a grim sort of relief flooding her chest. She knew now. She knew now how it had happened.

There was one last thing she needed to know.

“I have one last question.”

“I can try,” Leonie warned. “I don’t know how much more I can, though.”

“When he died...at least, was it instant?”

Leonie winced. “That, I cannot answer.”

“Why?”

“Our first priority was shutting down the plane. Our tanks were still full of fuel. One spark...We had to shut down the remaining engine. And with Hans taking over Martin’s job, it took a little longer. There was still...Martin was still bleeding, and...and moving a little, and trying to breathe, and that’s how we all knew he was still alive, but...we had to leave him behind to evacuate the passengers.”

“You’re saying that...he died alone.”

“It’s possible that he did. Who can know for sure?” Leonie held up her hands in a gesture of surrender, but they were both shaking. “Who can know for sure?” she repeated. “But we made sure that someone _tried_ to help him...and we gave him...we tried to give him something dignified. Broke into a hangar just for him, just so he had somewhere to…”

Theresa broke eye contact with Leonie and covered her eyes with one hand.

“I’m sorry. Yes. I think that’s enough.” Leonie apologized profusely. “Theresa—but, Theresa, please...do not misunderstand me.”

“Misunderstand…?” Theresa looked back up at the captain.

“This wasn’t his fault,” Leonie shook her head forcefully. “He did everything he was supposed to. He did _everything_ right. I don’t blame him. If anything, this is _my_ fault. I was supposed to keep him safe. I was supposed to be teaching him. I didn’t...I didn’t think to call out to bolt down all...Theresa, I shall never fly again. For God’s sake, I was his _training captain,_ I was his mentor for the flight…” Her expression was desperate, her voice quivering.

And Theresa couldn’t take it anymore.

Rising regally from her seat, she straightened out her dress. Black, well below the knee, standard mourning fare for a royal. 

She fucking hated this dress.

“Good afternoon,” Theresa bowed her head, struggling to keep her composure.

Leonie rose slowly from her chair, an expression of shock on her face. “Please. He did everything right.”

Theresa buttoned up her coat and began to slide on a pair of leather gloves.

“He did...he did everything right.” Leonie was almost pleading, gripping the back of her chair with shaking fingers. “He did everything right.”

“No.” Theresa looked down at her gloves, slid them on one finger at a time.

“What?”

“No. He didn’t do everything right.” Theresa tugged at the cuff of her glove and lightly balled her hands into fists at her sides. “If he had, he would still be here. Good day.”

And with that, she turned and left the hotel room without a single glance at the shocked captain she had left behind.

* * *

Theresa woke from the nightmare with her heart thudding against her breastbone and attempting to burst out of her chest.

A few seconds passed, and she registered that her whole body had been coated with a layer of sweat.

Under cover of darkness, wrapped in Martin’s sheets, she frowned. What had been the dream, exactly?

And then she shook her head. Perhaps it was best not to remember.

She blinked hard, slowly rubbed her eyes, and cautiously propped herself up to look over Martin. Squinting at the clock on his bedside table, she made out the red numbers to mean that she had woken up at 3 AM. Still very early.

As she lowered herself back into bed, Martin stirred, and she froze.

“Whassgoin’...you okay?” Martin slurred, yawning widely. “Somin…somethin’...happen?”

“No. It’s nothing, it’s okay. I’m sorry, _Martinli_. Go back to sleep.” Theresa gently pushed some of his hair back from his forehead. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Martin hazily reached up, fumbled for her hand, and turned it so the back was resting on his cheek. “Why’s it...’s kinda sticky...Tessa, why’s your hand shaking...?” 

“Shhh. I told you, it’s nothing. Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke...”

“Did you have...did you have a bad dream or somethin’?” Martin sounded a little more alert, and Theresa inwardly groaned, knowing she couldn’t deny it—not to him, not when he asked like this.

“Yeah...”

“Oh _nooo._ Okay, come here.” Martin wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. “What was it...”

“I...I don’t remember.” Theresa rested her head on his shoulder, blinking hard. “I don’t wanna...But you know, _Spätzli,_ we should really talk—not right now, obviously, but...”

“Talk ‘bout what?” Martin mumbled, face half-buried into her hair.

“Well, you know—what...well. It’s not the best topic, actually. I shouldn’t bring it up _now.”_

“‘S fine, promise! I’m listening.” Groggy but earnest. It was, frankly, endearing. “I like listening to you...”

“Well...in that case...we should really talk about...well.” She had a hard time putting it in words. “What should we...do. In case something goes wrong, and you go missing...”

“Oh! Oh, _Theresa._ Is this ‘cos we watched _Cast Away_ last week?”

“I dunno, maybe?”

“That won’t happen.” Martin’s voice was so earnestly confident, she wanted to believe him.

“Martin...”

“That won’t happen,” he repeated resolutely. “Aviation is very safe, things like that are rare...we’re trained and trained and trained and trained, they really prepare us for everything. Honestly, I’m more worried about _you.”_

_“Me?”_

“Yeah, you! Always...puttering around to meetings at the European Union and the United Nations and all your...your meetings and your diplomacy...Sometimes I’m scared some...some crazy person’s gonna get it in their head to hurt you or something.” He hugged her a little tighter.

“Oh, Martin,” Theresa smiled a little, turning her head to press her lips to his hand on her shoulder. “Who would want to do _that?_ Liechtenstein is not a very powerful country by any means.”

“But you’ve got banks, and...and stuff like that, I dunno.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Hmmm...I dunno, actually.”

Theresa laughed quietly. “But seriously, Martin...”

She sensed he was drifting back off to sleep, but he replied with a “Hmm?”

“If...if something like that...ever _does_ happen...you’re missing.”

“Yes?”

“I’d wait for you,” she murmured. “I’d wait for you. As long as it takes for you to come home. I’d wait.”

“Oh, but Theresa...”

“I’m very good at waiting,” she continued, ignoring him and closing her eyes. “I do a lot of it. Waiting for this regency to be over, for one...I could wait. I would do it, gladly. For you.”

“In that case,” Martin yawned again, and this time he was really half-asleep. “If it ever comes to that, I shall wait for you too, _liebling._ ”

“Hey...I love you,” she mumbled finally.

But by then, he was softly snoring into her hair.

* * *

Katherine pulled away from Theresa with a gusty, frustrated sigh. “Tessa, you’ve _got_ to pull yourself together somehow. This is the fifth time you’ve cried off my eyeliner.”

“Why don’t you lose your partner in an airplane crash to a brutally disfiguring injury, in a completely preventable accident, and then maybe we can talk?” Theresa glared back at her sister.

Her younger sister glared at her and threw her makeup kit back into her bag, standing up. “You know? I really don’t have to do this for you. And I don’t _want_ to do this for you. Nobody understands why you’re up your own ass, being such a fucking nightmare. Go find another damn commoner to bitch to, you don’t have to do this to your own family.”

 _For someone who wasn’t even family._ The last part was unsaid, but Theresa heard it as clear as day.

She swelled up, suddenly furious on top of weepy. “Well, you know what? He may have been just a commoner to you—to _all_ of you—but he was _Martin_ to me!” 

The door slammed as Katherine stalked out of the room.

Her sister had gone, but Theresa continued to shout. “People come, and people go, and for all you care they do, because we’re all stuck up our asses, but maybe for the happiest years of my life _I wasn’t_ —and then I had to go and _fuck it all up!”_

Tears were freely streaming down her face again, and Theresa scrubbed her face off with the sleeve of her robe, beginning to unravel. 

“I had to go and fuck it all up…”

* * *

One last round.

One last volley.

And then it would all be over.

What was _it,_ exactly? When she said _it would all be over,_ what did she mean? This ceremony? Her relationship with Martin? Heaven forbid, her connection to OJS? Her happiness? What did it mean, _it would all be over,_ anyway?

The riflemen lowered their guns, adjusted the action, let the last round slide into the chamber.

There was a breeze starting to pick up, swirling around her feet. Theresa closed her eyes momentarily. Maybe it was Martin, this breeze.

What would he have said? If it _were_ him in this breeze, what would he think of this? Maybe he would be a little embarrassed. A little flattered. 

Sad, maybe, about what she’d become.

They had held a solemn commemorative Mass at St. Florin’s, by Theresa’s request. She had glided into the cathedral in all black, thick gauzy veil pinned in place beneath her most drab fascinator. She had crossed herself, with her right hand.

To her forehead, to her stomach, left shoulder, right shoulder. Then lifted to her lips.

For a second she had wondered how everyone would react if she had bit down on her finger, screwed her hand into her mouth—

She’d never been lonelier in her life.

“Ready!” she shouted for the last time.

The rifles snapped into position.

“Aim!”

The riflemen brought their arms up to their shoulders, aimed at the sky one last time.

Theresa put her feet shoulder-width apart, made sure her grip on the sabre was strong, and swung it toward the sky—

She should have been calling the last command in this sequence, but something stole her voice from her throat, and she stood stock-still, gazing down the length of her blade.

This time, the sun was glinting off the edge of the blade. A spark, a star—

It pierced Theresa’s eyes, blinding her, and the blue of the sky flitted in and out of her awareness—

She had loved him. But it was all over.

Theresa pulled in one last breath of alpine air, stared at a sky she could not see, pictured the love of her life standing in it, and screamed the final command.

“ _Fire!"_

_**End.** _

_**** _

**Author's Note:**

> Artwork by me; you can find more of it on my [tumblr](https://knapp-shappeys.tumblr.com).
> 
> For the sake of posterity, I have to make a little nitpicky confession: the Boeing 777 is ETOPS rated, and able to fly on one engine for about five hours' time. I took a _lot_ of creative license to foment maximum suspense and agony. So...I'm sorry about that.
> 
> thanks for reading!


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